"My dear Fr. Abbot
I did not want to put it in a formal document, but I wish in justice to withdraw or amend, what I wrote to you the other day about the origin of the trouble between Bp. Riddell and the Benedictines of Downside over the gift by Miss Charlotte Boyd of the Slipper Chapel to Downside.
I have been going through the correspondence, and it appears from that that Miss Boyd from the commencement desired to make it over to the Benedictines.
She wrote to Bp. Riddell in this sense wishing to get his consent to this action. Bp. Riddell, however, did not take too kindly to the idea, and said he would like to place a missionar Priest at the Slipper Chapel as a centre from which he could, in time establish little Missions at Fakenham, Dereham and Wells. This was in August, 1895.
In July, 1897, she writes that the Chapel has been transferred and invested in the names of three of the Downside Benedictine Fathers.
In May, 1920, Abbot Ford asked leave to organize a Pilgrimage from Beccles and its neighbourhood to Walsingham in August, “but I am told that your Lordship would not approve of it. Will you please send me a line to say if this is so, for I should not move any farther in the project unless I was sure of your approval.”
To which Bp. Riddell answered, on May 28 1900 :
“There is only one Pilgrimage approved by me, that to the Shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham at Lynn. I cannot approve of any other.”
I only give you these extracts to clear myself of a misrepresentation of the facts which I made, and to show how the unfortunate friction began."
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Dereham
Dereham
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Dereham
- UF East Dereham